


Desk Perch

by fog_shadow



Series: Wittenberg, or: Hamlet the Weird Prince of Denmark and Stealthmaster Horatio [4]
Category: Hamlet - Shakespeare
Genre: Gen, flagrant disregard for the standard uses of furniture
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-07
Updated: 2015-12-07
Packaged: 2018-05-05 10:42:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5372378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fog_shadow/pseuds/fog_shadow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Obtruding upon Horatio the Unobtrusive: a Thought Experiment by Hamlet.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Desk Perch

Just once, Hamlet would like to see what Horatio would do if the prince were to leap up and crouch amongst the scholar's books and papers. It would be an amusing spectacle, but Hamlet could not bring himself to perform the experiment in reality: Horatio's shroud of scholarship—when he chose to don it—might or might not be impregnable, but it certainly was inviolable . . . sacred, even. The prince might approach Horatio and wait for the latter to obey—at his convenience—the tacit command for his attention, but for Hamlet to directly intrude upon Horatio's studious universe would be tantamount to blasphemy. This was Wittenberg, where the man of books was the best of men, and that unparalleled entity who claimed to have sprung from a family of Polish merchants (impossible! Beings such as Horatio—if indeed there were more if his kind than he alone—did not come from men of any sort . . . nor from women, for that matter) was the paragon of them all.

If anybody's desk were to become a perch, it was Hamlet's. That would be nothing new, however: Hamlet himself had been sitting, poised, on that very article of furniture mere moments previously. He was balanced on the back of a chair now. Horatio would not perch on a desk or a table, though—that would be too much in the middle of things for him. Perhaps if Hamlet, who was now pacing before a window, were to strew his books upon a window sill . . . ? The image was laughable: Horatio simply did not _perch_. Not in that way at least. He would ensconce himself upon some removed and lofty outlook from which he might observe all the worlds—and whatever it was that he sought for in all of them—and he would settle in to do just that. He would not watch, aquiver with anticipation, for some unsuspecting prey to pass along which he could swoop down upon. In any case, Hamlet wanted to be the one to pounce.

Of course, there was another reason why Hamlet would not attempt this. There was always the chance, however extremely minuscule, that Horatio would simply jump back or become annoyed, thereby proving that he was only human after all. Hamlet didn't want to see that.


End file.
